As the global population shifts from rural to urban areas, meeting the growing demand for clean, adequate supplies of water is becoming an increasingly difficult problem. In the U.S., the sprawling form of urban growth has created a particularly complicated challenge in that it increases demand for water while simultaneously endangering sources of supply. An important and efficient solution to the problem is to avert the impacts of sprawl before they occur by building in a way that has fewer negative impacts on water resources. Unfortunately, the local land use decisions that govern development are usually made in isolation from water resource considerations. Recognizing the need to better integrate land and water management, a number of jurisdictions throughout the U.S. have experimented with creating a legal nexus between land use and water resources. For example, California requires developers of large subdivisions to demonstrate to the local development permitting agency that there will be adequate water supply to meet the demands of the proposed development for at least 20 years, while Massachusetts imposes an additional layer of development review for proposed projects within 200 feet of most rivers in the state. This doctoral dissertation research provides the first systematic review of these efforts and evaluates how well each integrates land use and water resource decision-making from the perspective of environmental and legal "best practices." To do so, this project investigates the following questions: (1) what would a legal framework that successfully integrates land use and water resources look like?; (2) are existing examples of integrated legal frameworks capable of addressing the intertwined land use and water management challenges of suburbanization?; and (3) what are the pre-conditions to achieving regulatory integration of land use and water resources decision-making? To address these questions, the investigators undertake a state-by-state survey to identify and evaluate integrated regulatory regimes. To obtain deeper understanding of both the potential and the limitations of these programs, two states with examples of integrated legal regimes are chosen from the national survey for further investigation. The project employs a combination of legal research and interviews with key informants in the land use and water management communities. This evaluation forms the foundation for prescribing further avenues for integrating the legal frameworks of land use and water management to encourage water sustainability.
Addressing the suite of emerging water concerns in the United States will require solutions that forge new connections among water, land use, and law. To date, there is little literature in either geography or law that addresses these interconnections and their significant implications for environmental health and urban sustainability. While addressing that gap, this project will also provide a roadmap for the many places in the U.S. that currently lack the legal prerequisites to integrate land use and water resource management effectively.
